Anniversary for Paradise Lost

[likethebeer]

On this day in 1667 John Milton's Paradise Lost was registered for publication by printer Samuel Simmons. Milton's agreement with Simmons -- five pounds at signing, another five for each 1,500 copies sold on a first edition of 4,500 -- is the earliest known author's contract. At this point, the fifty-eight-year-old Milton had been totally blind for fifteen years, probably from glaucoma. His habit during the decade it took to write Paradise Lost was to compose at night and then present himself each morning to a scribe -- a nephew, daughter, or secretary -- to be, as he put it, "milked."
http://bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Daybook/The-Modern-Milton/ba-p/8683